This is the first review I have ever written, so I hope to write better ones (better paragraph composition and things related to that aspect) in the future. Anyway, here it comes:

HyperBowl is a bowling simulator game different to the standard ones, as it is not based on being a person that throws the bowling ball to strike down the pins. Instead, the player is controlling the ball directly, and has to move it from the starting location to the place where the pins are, and only when it is less than a certain distance, the player loses control of the ball and it continues to roll to the last direction it was ordered to move. The path between the starting location of the ball and the pins can be very tortuous and full of obstacles, depending on which "world" is it playing.

About my personal experience with the game, I liked it very much the first time I played it, more than a decade ago. So, after remembering the existence of this game, I searched it on Steam and found this version. It was very nice to know that the game had five more worlds to play, and it kept the essence of the first version I played. However, this version feels very glitchy, since in many worlds the ball bounces "spontaneously" (the track is flat and there are no obstacles in front of the ball), and in the new ones the computer even miscounts the pins that were stricken down. All of these problems provoke that the player actually struggles to achieve a strike, rather than enjoy the game and the landscapes of its worlds. The evidence of what I am saying is in this video, which is my gameplay through all the worlds available in this version.

I had spent the good part of this afternoon trying to get original ISO files to work on modern hardware, older VMs, maybe if I had tried hard enough, I'd have got it working.

However, there is a remaster avaliable on Steam, put together very well. Massive kudos to the remastererer-er for cutting the bull and having a working build for modern hardware.

I do note some issues with the game, that aren't game breaking, but could be balanced for:

HyperBowl was NEVER DESIGNED FOR MODERN MICE. I personally use a Logitech G402 maxxed out on the DPI setting, and it's not uncommon to have about as much control as a racecar whilst you have no arms. Drop your DPI setting to around 400 (aiming macro button) or so if you're gonna play this, use a period correct mouse, or just use WASD.

But then this leads to another problem. Setting the DPI too low or using WASD on maps like San Francisco results in not allowing the ball to gain enough momentum to actually acheive strikes.

In some cases, some sound FX linger if you leave the game early into the menus until you play a new instance of the game, and tabbing out is not yet perfect, not hiding the mouse again upon return, resulting in the mouse cursor being a distracting element.

Still worth it? Totally. Price tag is set fairly and will give you a sweet nostaglia kick.

A fairly decent port of Hyperbowl in terms of the original lanes, but the bonus courses (that I've played) are just horrid. The custom ball feature from the mobile port is also mysteriously absent here too. Hyperbowl itself also hasn't aged very well, and there are some very noticable lighting differences in Pins of Rome. Overall, though, a decent port of a very unique bowling game. It's fairly cheap, too!

Oh, and the snow lane is just an eyesore and doesn't fit Hyperbowl's aesthetic at all. Maybe adjust the brightness a tad?

Edit: I also noticed that the screen transition sound is unusually quiet in this version, and it's much quieter than the rest of the game's sounds. I imagine it should be an easy fix, though, and it doesn't affect the gameplay much.

First of all, I want to say to ignore the low play time. I played the original version of this game (called Hyperbowl Arcade Edition) a ♥♥♥♥ ton in my (early) youth and am one of the few to have the now-defunct hyperbowl.com-exclusive CD-ROM of this game, and I have played the mobile version of this a lot too, so I know exactly how this game should look and play.

Anyways, from my understanding, this is an attempt to completely remake that arcade game in the Unity engine from scratch; and honestly, they did a pretty good job. However, the original version is vastly superior to this, and luckily the developer(s) have linked an ISO and some patches to get the original to work on modern systems over on their website, https://technicat.itch.io/hyperbowl. It works great under Windows 98/Windows ME compatibility mode on the latest version of Windows 10 (as of typing this the May 2019 update, version 1903) and I know for a fact it works fine on Windows 7 and 8.1 as well under the same compatibility mode, so I HIGHLY recommend you try to get the original version to work before this, and only buy the game to support the developer(s) for taking the time to make this re-creation basically from scratch. I have heard however that for some reason it doesn't work on some systems. If it doesn't, well... This is the next best thing.

The game tries to be a faithful recreation of the original, although this game still plays like it's very early in development, with the worst case of this being the Tokyo lane. On the original arcade edition, there are supposed to be multiple very busy intersections at the end of the bridge with many cars that get in the way of the ball, making it the hardest lane in the game. On this version however, it is basically a ghost town once you go off the bridge, and missing the iconic bounce of the ball when you hit cars steering you off track, making it not only significantly easier than the original but less fun and less lively as well. It really feels like an early alpha version of the lane. Unfortunately, the same can also be said for San Francisco, where the trolleys only move in one horizontal direction and the heavier pin physics make it harder to knock down the pins compared to the original version. Almost all of the lanes are missing some props, like the cars and trolleys previously mentioned, the sky-trams in the San Francisco lane, the cannon balls in high seas, and the butterfly sprites in Yosemite. There are also some sound effects missing, like hitting the metal plate in the San Francisco lane or the fire extinguisher, and all of this makes the game feel more dull than the original.

However, other than the city maps, they are accurate enough recreations to warrant the measly 3 dollar price, and I highly recommend you pick this up just for the classic and Pins of Rome lanes alone, as those are almost exactly like the original except for them lacking the (in my opinion) way more fun, lightweight and bouncy pin physics of the arcade edition.

Along with the original lanes, this version also adds several new lanes, but unfortunately these are very lacking in quality and is my biggest problem with this game. There's one snow map with some ramps, and while it plays good enough the lane has a WAY different art style compared to the rest of the lanes, and just doesn't fit in. There are also other ones which are nearly unplayable, like a tropical beach one where you have this incredibly long lane that gives you just BARELY enough time to get to the pins, if you are lucky. But by far, the one I hate the most is one with all of these STUPID jump pads that never give you enough clearance for the pins and just send the ball flying all over the place, and is frankly just poorly designed. There's also a camp fire one and a mushroom one, and those are both perfectly playable but don't offer much gameplay difference from the classic lane. It seems like they're just there for if you want different visuals to look at. I really wish the developer(s) would focus the energy they put on these extra lanes onto the original 6 lanes to make them equal to or better than the original version. I would LOVE to see this become a "remastered" version of the arcade edition but unfortunately it isn't anywhere near that level yet.

I know I may be overly critical here, but I really want to see this turn out good, and so far it looks promising!

In Summary: This game is a faithful recreation with a few big flaws, but with the pricetag there is really no reason not to buy this for the sake of supporting the developer. I highly recommend downloading the original Arcade Edition ROM image from the website and see if you can get it to run on your system with Windows 98/Windows ME Compatibility Mode before playing this, as it is a way more polished experience (although still buy this version). I hope in the future this game can become good enough to replace the arcade edition, but until then 3 dollars is enough to justify supporting the developer.

The Windows XP Plus Classic! I played this obsessively as a kid alongside Labyrinth Plus Edition, during a nostalgia trip just now I found out this was on Steam! Happy to support the developer of this. The Unity remake isn't as good as the original, but it still plays similarly enough and it's still very enjoyable.